An anti-war, anti-neo-conservative blog to counter the lies of those who wish to condemn us to perpetual conflict. All this, plus horse-racing, football, books, films, television, and plenty of other topics too....
My new book 'Stranger than Fiction', a biography of Edgar Wallace, is available here:
http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/biography-books/stranger-than-fiction-25294.html and here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-than-Fiction-Wallace-Created/dp/0752498827

Friday, March 12, 2010

Introducing Iran Lie Watch

First they came for the Yugoslavs. Then the Afghans. Then the Iraqis-up to 1m killed since the illegal invasion of 2003. Now it’s the Islamic Republic of Iran that is menaced by the advocates of perpetual war.

But before the military attacks, come the lies. Lots and lots of them.

As the neocon-inspired propaganda campaign against Iran goes into overdrive, I thought it was time we had a new regular feature: Iran Lie Watch.

General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, today confirmed a US intelligence assessment which said the freed British hostage Peter Moore was "certainly" held in Iran for at least some of his 31 months in captivity.

As Moore arrived back in Britain at RAF Brize Norton this evening, Petraeus told a press conference in Baghdad: "I am on the record as having said that our intelligence assessment is that he certainly spent part of the time, at the very least, in Iran."

Peter Moore, the British IT consultant kidnapped on May 29, 2007 in Iraq and held hostage for three years by Shia extremists, has spoken about his ordeal. In the first interview about his time in captivity, Moore says he was held in Basra - not in Iran, as many reports had claimed - and denies there was any significant Iranian link to the group beyond some covert funding. He also dismisses the suggestion the kidnap was orchestrated by Iran's Republican Guard, insisting the kidnappers – a group calling themselves the League of the Righteous - were "Iraqi resistance" with "representation" in Iraq's government.

Will General David Petraeus be making an apology to Iran over his false accusation? And will we see this story covered on the numerous neocon blogs and websites?

Remember Georgia? In the latest stunt one of the TV stations broadcast a war of the world style mock Russian invasion and assassination of the President with a disclaimer right at the end of the 30 minute broadcast that it is not real. Even the War of the World broadcast the disclaimer was at the start of the program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWkCTMBACo0

Actually the originally War of the World broadcast was a psychological warfare experiment test for the Rockefeller foundation presumably to see what public reaction would be to the forth coming US involvement in WW2. Is this a test to get the Georgians to preparing for another provocation and war against Russia?

The problem is that these Colour Revolutions are designed to empower only pro-US elies,cabals of placemen who aim at privatising Iranian assets into Western hands.

This neoliberal "shock therapY" only alienates large numbers of the poor and creates mass anger and discontent, as seen in Georgia, and a nationalist backlash.

All that should not, however, act as a defence, by default, of the Iranian regime established by the Ayatollah,one reason I am as sceptical of Colour Revolutions as of Galloway and the "anti-war" movement in Britain ( at least it's leaders and RESPECT ).

As George Orwell wrote those like Galloway are conducting propaganda too as part of what Orwell called "transferred nationalism". Press TV, that Galloway works for, is funded by Iran.

The most pressing need it to expose any pretext for an military invasion of Iran or of lies about the extent of it's nuclear programme which even the IAEA has rejected as having no conclusive evidence of a weapons programme.

It should not be forgotten that Iran has a regime that kills and executes homosexuals and is not a state that respects the dignity individuals or human rights.

Yeah but 1984 itself was originally based on the British Foreign Office before being adapted to anti-Stalinist Trotskyite propaganda which has been the standard and false impression we have of Stalinist Russia prior to WW2 which does not conform to reality.

And this "authoritarian" model has been the pretext/model to interfere in other countries affairs.

I just think Karl is saying that, while Colour Revolutions are in no way truly democratic and national sovereignty is important, the left should not romanticise Iran simply because of what it is not. I see no contradiction in opposing rabble-rousing rhetoric against Iran while recognising that Iran as it stands does not embody the values I believe in. That doesn't mean I admire the Shah's regime either - let us not forget that the closest Iran came to a proper liberal democratic government was destroyed by the US, with the UK in its then-new role as de facto teamaker of global geopolitics, in the 1950s.

You see, Brian, it's a matter of *nuances* - something that is missed by neocons, but also by your own crude slogan "politics".

He is not on any side and I think he writes some well balanced articles.

Although I am amazed that he thinks that post Soviet Russia, Ukraine, etc economic collapse was just a result of poor economic management and policies and was not an engineered collapse although those who carried out the policy spearheaded by Soros made a personal fortune from the mass looting of Russia and now front it “democratic” opposition.

Entirely agree with Robin. I do find the my-enemies-enemy politics of some left-wingers a bit dubious. Iran regularly tortures and kills homosexuals and converts to Christianity.

I don’t think it would have changed if Ahmedinjad lost the election, mind. In fact I’m sure a lot of neocons were overjoyed when he did because that gave them the chance to use the old dubiously-translated soundbyte about wiping Israel of the map to continue interfering in the Middle East.

Indeed. Neocons and Islamic fundamentalists want *each other* to rule - because without the other they would both lose a large part of the justification for their fundamentalist, either-with-us-or-against-us rhetoric.

OBL's intervention in the 2004 US election undoubtedly helped Bush to win, which was probably its precise intention.

Well, the silly notion that an individual person sceptical of all power blocs save that which opposes the power bloc he favours just because they oppose it in nonsensical. Which is what Orwell was getting at with transfrered nationalism and doublethink

Orwells vision of 1984 was based on that and not on the Foreign Office. The Ministry of Love was influenced by the BBC building in fact and Orwell's frustration was in not being able to get Animal Farm published as it might "offend" the USSR, still an ally at the time.

There is this neurosis in some that because the USA is rampaging around and invading foreign nations for oil and gas, that, therfore, just any power that opposes the US is thus automatically better than the US.

Only a lunatic can believe a regime that murders homosexuals or mass executes people or treat human like fungible material as the poor are in China or the black new slaves in Africa are is a wholly deluded halfwit.

Everything I have tried to write is in defence of what is valuable about liberalism on the political plane and about the way civil society is a good idea I'd like to see more of and which is stifled and eroded by unaccountable corporatism.

in 2010 we are dominated by new banal orthodoxies in the West dominated by think tanks, where those with academic pretensions prostrate themselves before a line, the prescriptions of a creed.

Independent thought is being marginalised whilst those who shout and harrangue like Galloway are given airtime because they tap into the need for anger, the need to feel that "socialism" is still a force. And that he is the "authentic" version of it.

He is not any more than than Hitchens who now thinks the US President was fighting a war in Iraq for HIS reasons.

Orwell was subtle enough to know this is the projection on to superpower to carry out a world historical mission that the intellectual, feeling his impotence, believes IT can do what he, the fellow traveller can not.

Ironically, this is precisely what many pro-Communist intellectuals believed about the USSR long after it was apparent that it cared for power, domination, and the control of "Eastern Europe".

As regards Iran a change is needed. But it must come from democratic Iranians and not US "designer democrats" whether in Belarus or elsewhere on Frum's idiotically coined "Axis of Evil"

HOW that can be brought about is the crucial question of the epoch we live in. I do not pretend to have the answers to this but there was something dodgy about RESPECT from the beginning.

It revolved around a slimy demagogue with a line in media and self presentational anger called Galloway and Islomo-Bolsheviks. So no, they are no answer, have none apart from ramping up mere hatred.

The philosopher Alan Watts once wrote of such people "they hate the hating of hatred-three instead of one" and the promotion of a sane society cannot come that way.Nihilism turned the Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin into a bloodbath.

A coalition of civil society activists opposed both to fake designer PR democrats wanting to grab the resources of states which belong to the people there AND horrid totalitarian and authoritarian regimes is the only hope.

Thanks Robin and Greg

PS.Everything I write is based on this. Neil Clark's insight into the reality of what really happened in post-communist Europe is important. It's what journalism is supposed to be about. But by default letting other regimes off the hook for their abuses and injustices is spineless and craven.

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About Me

I am a journalist, writer & broadcaster, based in the U.K. I am a regular pundit on foreign/current affairs on RT , Voice of Russia and the BBC.
I am the author of 'Stranger than Fiction', a new biography of Edgar Wallace, which is available here http://goo.gl/o2cZze
I am a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines in UK & overseas including The Guardian, The Week, Morning Star, Daily & Sunday Express, The Mail on Sunday & The Spectator.
My work has also appeared in The Fleet Street Letter, The Huffington Post, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Australian and in publications as diverse as The American Conservative, Pravda, Woman's Weekly & the Racing Post.
I am strongly opposed to the neo-conservative war agenda -and believe in the urgent necessity of a left-right anti-war coalition.
On domestic issues I support re-nationalisation of the railways and public utilities (I am co-founder of The Campaign for Public Ownership), a new top rate of tax on the very wealthy, free care for the elderly, a free National Health Service including the restoration of NHS dentistry, and protection of the Green Belt and the countryside.
FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @NEILCLARK66